Published 1:00 pm, Friday, September 16, 2011

While many things have changed at Plainview's Walmart Distribution Center through the years, some things haven't.

Among them are 25 associates who started with the company within a year of when the distribution center opened here in 1986.

"We have 12 original associates (who) started handling freight in some format currently still working at the distribution center either as hourly associates or managers," said General Manager Bobby Ross.

Ross happens to be one of them. Except for time spent at a distribution center in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, just prior to him being named GM some 14 years ago, Ross has been in Plainview. Ted Baker has a similar story to Ross, having worked for Walmart for 25 years and leaving for a time before returning.

"Ted left and got to come back to Plainview, too," Ross said.

One associate who never left is Anna Salazar.

"She was hired by Lowell Milbrandt, the original personnel manager," Ross said of Salazar. "She worked in the temporary offices on 24th Street while the building was being constructed."

Salazar has served as personnel clerk, personnel coordinator and maintenance clerk, which she's being doing for the past 16 years.

Salazar had a hand in hiring many of the original employees, including Ross.

"She set me up for an interview," he said.

One of Salazar's most memorable moments in her career with Walmart happened at a banquet held here.

Ross said Salazar was in charge of writing people's names on tags they could wear so everyone would know each other.

According to Ross, Salazar was busy writing names when a man approached her table and said his name was Sam. Then she asked what his last name was, and he said Walton.

Salazar didn't realize until she wrote his entire name out that she was making a tag for the company founder.

"He just laughed and said, ‘No harm done,' " Ross said of Walton's reaction. "She said he was a down-to-earth and regular guy."